ABSTRACT
An undercurrent in Software Action Group for Europe's (SAGE) argument was that strong copyright laws were needed to protect the European computer industry from domination by the Japanese. The Directive then came before the Legal Affairs Committee, the committee with lead responsibility for the Software Directive. SAGE acquiesced to the black box reverse engineering provision, but tried to narrow the decompilation provision. The Legal Affairs Committee proposed several clarifying amendments, which received a two-to-one margin of the votes cast in the full Parliament. The Recitals in the Directive's Preamble reflect a strong commitment to interoperability inconsistent with copyright protection for interface specifications. The hard-fought procedural exercise culminating in the adoption of the Software Directive introduced the European Community to American-style lobbying on a massive scale. European Committee for Interoperable Systems and American Committee for Interoperable Systems viewed the Berne Protocol exercise as an opportunity to clarify explicitly software copyright standards worldwide.
